Incomplete Thoughts

I am prefacing this post with the following disclaimer. I am a mess, thus everything that spills out of me on any given day could either be brilliance or nonsense, and will almost inherently be simply incomplete. I can fool myself an others into thinking I am more organized than I am, but truly, to know me is to see my glaring inconsistencies and general disheveled-ness. 

This disclaimer comes because the thoughts I am to pen this morning are fragmented, complicated and underdeveloped. They are still in the larva stage of existence. And they are about communal living. A topic most people have much more figured out and are far enough along in to pursue in amazingly beautiful ways. Basically, all y'all are a lot more wise than I. 

I have lived in Kansas City about a year now. And in that year, I have met, remet, stared at from afar, etc. many people, some to stick, some not. And when facing these people, I have noticed a paradoxical and two-fold fear. 

1) I am not interesting enough for anyone to get to know outside of a casual setting

2) Those who would get to know me outside of that are going to fail me so best not to try at all

Both of these are wrought with insecurity and debilitation. And both have damaged me. Inherently, these two trails of thought when played out together leave me alone, resulting in either an aching for relationship or an arrogant insistence to perpetuate this so not to be incapable of being by myself....all in the name of independence.

However. 

In recent months, I have seen so many errors in this my head is spinning. The first and most glaring fact to be that to be Christian is to love people. While God is the absolute, I AM. We are the feet of that, and for me to extricate my life from others is to extricate from a big part of Himself. To not live amidst other people in a way that goes beyond a hello at Quay ruins us all of the chance to see God be big. My mother, quoting some genius the other night, told me "my life is too small for God to be able to display all of His Goodness. He deserves the room to use other people with other beliefs, goals, dreams, abilities to show me Himself too". And that statement is also good vice versa. 

This is hard for me to broach. I would rather avoid the hurts, the confusion, the hard conversations, the awkward scenario. I am comfortable to say hello and calling that "being known". Although to do so is to live a farce. That is a cancerous view of community that will only serve to decay any semblance of beauty in my life. 

My life right now is broken up into various sects. My work, my home, my social life and my church. My social life and my church integrate the most, but generally the separateness reigns. I'm asking what God would have me do for that. To boldly face those irrationalities and to pursue friendships. Remembering that it is okay to exhaust myself by people sometimes.

I feel able to say this because I have seen it. Though not a participant, I have been a witness to watching people I admire and revere live very beautiful lives rich with people, they are liberal with their love. Being around them is to inhale the rich fragrance of community. Like the earth after a storm, I am stirring beneath a cloud of ineffectual and infectious fears to a way of life much fuller than my own. These are the people I am grateful for. They do not know how their living is changing me, and that's the best kind of living in my mind. 

And regarding my great paradox from above. Though those have been realized in relationships before, they are not the end. So be it if I am not interesting enough for one, what a silly thing to base my value off of anyway. And how foolish of me to not do something because of a fear of failure. Friendships are best when ugly and messy. My favorite people are the ones who have stumbled through and found God in the midst of it. I'd rather be one of them anyway. 

Let me end this with a re-disclaimer. I'm at the beginning here. If you are wiser than me in this, please feel free to help. If you are with me in this, I hope I'm brave enough to go beyond saying hello to you in public. If you are nowhere near being here, I understand. Sometimes I can be a real jerk and it's fair for you to not trust me. Here's to letting us be where we are and loving one another enough to not leave each other in the midst of it all.